Facebook Photos

10 BILLION FACEBOOK PHOTOS
Paul Worthington

Who would have thought that Facebook would store more images than many dedicated photo sharing sites?

The community-oriented Web company says it now stores 10 billion photographs uploaded by its members -- and, as it stores each photo in four different sizes, it actually has 40 billion image files.

Facebook adds that:2-3 Terabytes of photos are uploaded each day;

It has more than one petabyte of photo storage;

It serves more than 15 billion photo images per day;

Photo traffic peaks at more than 300,000 images served per second.

October 17. 2008

GPS Manufacturers Face a Rapidly Changing Market... GPS Phones th

Over the last couple of years I have tried to document the impact adding GPS into most smartphones is going to have or having on the major manufacurers of GPS parts, piences and products. Essentially GPS World is preparing the industry for likely consolidation?

GPS World's OEM Insights — January 2009

"In all, about six to eight major retailers accounted for the majority of GPS/PND sales last year...."

2008 started out sunny and warm as I remember. We all said goodbye to 2007 and a holiday buying spree that exceeded all expectation. With a new year of windfall profits behind them, GPS manufacturers, their shareholders, analysts and investors were confident 2008 would be even better. There were two types of disasters in 2008, however: no. 1 (self inflicted) was created by poor management, over valuation, and lack of insight. The second disaster can be attributed to the general economic market collapse of 2008

In the professional .land use products market, mentioned early, companies suffered setbacks as their main business of productivity solutions targeted the slumping construction, mining ,and utility infrastructure segment. Trimble was seen to tumble in the disaster no. 2 scenario. Although times were tougher, the companies key executives tended to spend a lot of time fine tuning their own compensation packages and stock programs while facing some early heat this year about the reasoning behind the stock repurchase plan, which was used to prop up the stock price. But they know the value of being low key and that accounts for a lot these days.

According to a select group industry watchers, times will be tough for the PND. "This PND space is absolutely going in the crapper," said Jeff Evanson, an analyst at Dougherty & Co. Evanson sees several factors leading to a "dramatic slowdown" in PND sales, including a lack of innovation in PND products for holiday season, signs of market saturation, and competition for consumer spending.

GeoTagging GPS Accuracy

GPS Performance Standard Document Updated - GPS World

The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) has released an updated civil GPS Standard Positioning Service Performance Standard, committing the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to an improved level of GPS accuracy for civilian signals.

It is the fourth revision of the standard positioning service (SPS) performance standards document, and the first update since October 2001. In addition to specifying GPS minimum performance commitments, the SPS performance standard serves as a technical document designed to complement the GPS Signal in Space (SIS) Interface Specification.

The most significant change in the updated SPS standards is a 33 percent improvement in the minimum level of SIS range accuracy, from 6 meters root mean square (rms) accuracy to 4 meters rms (7.8 meters, 95 percent), according to the document, which is drafted by the DoD and released through the PNT committee.

While the stated dedication to improvement is notable, it has a built-in conservative margin for minimum performance; as the documents authors note in the executive summary: "with current (2007) SIS accuracy, well designed GPS receivers have been achieving horizontal accuracy of 3 meters or better and vertical accuracy of 5 meters or better, 95 percent of the time."

The full SPS document can be found on the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing website.

What is a SMARTPHONE?

I have tried and tried to better understand the GPS chip count but the " industry pundits " used as sources are not much more that soggy cow-chips .

I have even gone to the horses’ mouths to try to sort out not the finite count but the magnitudes of growth. Too sensitive - fortunes and futures are at stake!

And my absolute biggest gripe is the speculation as related to so called smart-phones, the Mother-of-all-GPS uses, evolution into PDNs (or is it really PDNs/PDAs into smart phones?) for which there seems to be a rather dynamic definition that so crumbles the statistical edges that nothing or very little can be determined… with the result of FUD.

Personally I see the one-handed smart-phones versus enlightened PDAs and PDNs (also know as "I want-2-b-a-phone too!" devices) as key to really understanding what may or may not be really happening…

My personal bet is where ever you have a good digital camera the chances of having a GPS location will soon be the norm - so just count the great cameras? Too easy.. just point me in the direction of great cameras - Nokia, Nikon, Cannon, Kodak, and Apple or Google?

Smart Phones Must Have's:

• Provide voice communication via a carrier
• Provide Internet connectivity via carrier and WiFI/WAN (I don’t need no stupid carrier!)
• Can be programmed by third-parties
• Organize internally around a directory tree structures for programs and data
• Provide removable data storage/chips
• Include the Bluetooth halo
• Have a good camera – better than 3mp IMHO and VGA MPEG video
• Have good GPS – CEP less than 30m

Now the statistical chaff starts when “form/size” is included. There are two types based on size – candy-bar origami and ham-sandwiches both now exhibiting an evolving form identified as finger-fud:

One-handed – small, fits in your pocket including origami designs (which reveal a hidden keyboard) but can be and best operated with one hand and thumb – billions sold

One Hand vs Origami

Two-handed – needs two hands to operate either with touch/micro-keyboards or finger/stylus.

ham-sandwiches (size factor) like most Palm, RIM, and Microsoft OSed devices – keyboards not hidden but sometimes can be virtual – tens of millions to be sold soon

Ham Sandwiches

Both forms are evolving features I identify as finger-fud – best example is iPHONE and like derivatives (Ham-sandwich with crusts trimmed?).

So if you or your group can help normalize all of this noise we, at least this MidNight Mapper, will all appreciate your skills and clarity of purpose. Heck you might even be called over to DC to alert our government that things are happening in the GPS domain.

Lastly, there are two phone-GPS pieces really missing IMHO –

• really cool "integrated" usability (a review of third-party GPS utilities not just maps!), and
• accuracy of the GPS since LBS and its certain 2-come ad-$$ can be as bad as phantom clicks if the revenue models think 100m CEP versus 3m CEP is the smarter choice to deliver and charge 4 an ad?

Smartphones - not a cheese sandwich

In 2007, worldwide smart-phone sales to end users grew 52.5% compared with 2006, reaching 122 million unit sales. 4Q07 was the strongest quarter on record, with sales up 50% year over year. Gartner - March 2008

So at this moment in time, June 2008, the best guess on total smart phones to be sold in the first two quarters of '08 would be something like 75 million units. What makes a smart phone? Well its all of the mobile phones that are not PDA-like - meaning if it looks like a large piece of bread when holding up to your ear (like a lot of the Microsoft Mobiles) its not a "smart-phone". A bit of a wobbly statistic qualifier I know but reasonably accurate IMHO.

That large classification behind us, I would then divide the world into to one handed smart-phones versus two-handed. RIM, Microsoft, and Apple are the essentially players in two-handed phone use so that is one group... maybe 30 percent of all smart-phones out there. And Android will likely further fragment that group mostly at the pain of Microsoft. Nokia's are essentially one handed smart-phone designs and have say 45 percent of all smart phones and only bit play in the two-handed domain. That leaves the remaining smart-phone players with 25 percent of worldwide smart-phones as mostly one-handed designs.

What is of common to the smart-phones...? They all connect to the Internet and have the potential to by-pass legacy phone connect services - hmmm pretty smart. All have cameras, some better than others (3 mega-pixel is so last month) and all but the less-smart-phones now have GPS. And if you are really a smart smart-phone user, your smart-phone has WiFi too! Nothing like getting your GB at a discount when your can!

Gartner's reports average $1500 a copy so you have to watch the smoke signals. And the smoke signals suggest the following to me:

Nokia dominates the category called smart-phones everywhere but in the US were it just does not yet have much market share. That is going to change as 3G really takes hold in the US in a significant way over the coming year. Currently, in the US RIM dominates as the defacto of the smart-phones followed by Apple iPHONE (wahoo!). World wide iPHONE is way back in the pack in count but likely number "uno" in passion and most-desired factors - it ain't no sandwich up against your head!

And I will really stretch out on this one... Symbian is no slouch OS... but what they do for two-handed smart-phones is yet to be seen? Apple is to die for but it will always be Apple's... Android, is a dark horse that will keep all the OS players honest but my suspicion is that the carriers are also going to be just a "bit" wary of Google's gift... somewhere in Google's "do-no-harm" the carriers will loose control and just be a bit-player in the big Ethernet?

And FYI... From Gartner via Computerworld's budget/leverage....

June 6, 2008 (Computerworld) While much of the attention in the U.S. smart phone market is on the next-generation iPhone, which is expected to be revealed by Apple Inc. on Monday, the global leader for smart phone sales is still Nokia Corp., analyst firm Gartner Inc. said in a report released today. Nokia had 45.2% of the worldwide market in the first quarter, followed by Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of BlackBerry, with 13% and the Apple's iPhone (first generation), with 5%, was third, Gartner said.

In the U.S., RIM was ranked No. 1, at 42% for the first quarter, while Apple was No. 2, at 20%, Gartner said. Earlier this week, research firm IDC reported similar findings, putting RIM in the U.S. at a 44% share and Apple at a 19% share.

Gartner found that RIM's global market share increased to 13.4% in the quarter, up from 8.3% in the first quarter a year earlier. The iPhone was not shipping until June 2007. Nokia slipped slightly to a market share of 45.2% this year from 46.7% in the same quarter last year, although the total number of units shipped rose from 14.5 million units in the quarter, up from 11.6 million in the first quarter of 2007.

Globally, total smart phone growth in the first quarter grew 29%, making up 11% of all mobile devices sold. Sales in the first quarter totaled 32.2 million units, Gartner said.

In Europe, Middle East and Africa, growth was 38.7% in the first quarter, compared to the first quarter of 2007, with 11.7 million units sold, Gartner said. Nokia is especially strong in Europe. By comparison, smart phone sales in North America were up 106% in the first quarter compared with the first quarter a year ago, with a total number of 7.3 million units sold.

Smart phone growth was driven by buyers replacing older phones, but also by new devices with touch screens and a variety of new applications, Gartner analysts said. Growth in the smart phone segment is expected to continue as more open-platform devices are announced, such as Android-based phones, they added.

Despite an economic downturn, the smart phone market continued to expand in the U.S., driven by lower-cost devices and heavy advertising and marketing, said Hugues De La Vergne, a Gartner analyst. Wireless operators in the U.S. and Canada are also giving the smart phone devices their attention, since they can provide higher revenue per user than more traditional devices, he added.

Globally, the fourth-ranked smart phone in sales was a tie between Sharp and Fujitsu, each with 4.1%, Gartner said. All other smart phone makers had nearly 28% of the market, but Gartner did not specify which devices. Microsoft Corp., maker of the Windows Mobile operating system, contends that Windows Mobile smart phones have the largest share globally, but their numbers are not included by either IDC or Gartner because they are sold across four device-makers and include ruggedized devices

2.8 Billion Mobile GPS Devices in Four Years!

Parks Associates predicts GPS-integrated Mobile Devices to Exceed 830 Million Units Globally by 2012

Worldwide shipments of GPS-integrated mobile devices will grow at an annualized rate of nearly 40% over the next five years, reaching 834 million units in 2012, according to Parks Associates' new report: "GPS: A Path to New Applications on Mobile Devices".

The report looks at a variety of mobile devices, including personal navigation devices (PNDs), mobile handsets and smartphones, portable media players, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). “Mobile handsets and smartphones will constitute the majority of shipments up to 2012, but PNDs will remain the most widely used and preferred navigation choice in the next three years,” said Harry Wang, senior analyst, Parks Associates.

"GPS will come to your mobile handset as a standard feature, but mobile carriers are still a couple of years away from turning GPS into a money-making, mass-market feature," Wang added. “Currently, consumers prefer PNDs thanks to the combination of a bigger screen, more versatile functions, and growing affordability”.

"The use of navigational services on mobile phones will lag behind adoption of PNDs and GPS-integrated handsets in the near term, [but] carriers can boost consumer interest and usage by developing flexible and innovative services and revenue models."

Flickr Geotagged Images Statistic

April 8, 2008 - So now we have around 45 Million geotagged photos... on Flickr

Dan Catt works for Flickr. He also works on Maps.

I have been trying to keep track of aggregated geotagged images on Flickr and other image sharing sites. Flickr "used" to provide the total count when you opened up maps but apparently that feature has been eliminated. I was looking at some of the like technology over on the Microsoft zone and I have to wonder if they are successful to buy-up Yahoo what will happend to Flickr? New maps and dump the old API for their's? Indeed, times they are a-changen?

Based on some of the legacy stats in this list, I would guess that Flickr add around a million geotagged images a month. Wish I could figure out the same for growth. I would suspect that the emergence of smartphones with geotagging on-board are starting to really kick up the interest and growth rate?

GeoTag Icon

What's this all about in a nutshell?

http://www.geotagicons.com/

The Geotag Icon is intended as a web "standard" icon for identifying geotagged content to humans.

The advent of inexpensive GPS devices and free tools like Google Maps or Flickr Map mean that more and more people are associating their content (typically blog posts or photos) with a specific geographic location. Such "geotagging" stores coordinates within metadata or microformat tags—where machines can find them but people can't.

That's where the Geotag Icon comes in. It provides a visual reference to a map link, or if no link is yet made helps viewers recognize the geographic relevance of the content.

It's free, easy to use and helps us all visualize the developing semantic web.

geoMobile Services $13 billion by 2013

Mobile Location Based Services Revenue to Reach $13.3 Billion Worldwide by 2013

LONDON - April 3, 2008

Contact: Nicole Fabris Contact PR http://www.abiresearch.com/

After years of hype, mobile Location Based Services (LBS) are finally gaining traction among wireless subscribers. This growth is driven on the supply side by WCDMA and GSM handsets increasingly joining the many CDMA-based devices that incorporate GPS capabilities; and on the demand side by surging consumer interest in personal navigation functionality. According to a new report from ABI Research, LBS revenue is forecast to reach an annual global total of $13.3 billion by 2013, up from an estimated $515 million during 2007. Personal navigation, although expected to remain the most popular consumer application over the next several years, won’t be alone: friend-finder, local information searches, family tracker applications, and enterprise applications (including workforce tracking and fleet management), will all find niches under the LBS umbrella. Friend-finding is anticipated to be the next service launched for mass consumption. ABI Research industry analyst Jamie Moss says, “Personal navigation and enterprise services are projected to be the highest revenue-generating services of the five LBS categories profiled, and are forecast to be worth about $4.3 billion and $6.5 billion respectively, per annum, by 2013.” “The interesting thing about the LBS content-producing sector is that much of the information is already available,“ Moss continues. “It’s a win-win situation for content providers: they already have established markets for their map and POI data (automotive and telematics), and LBS is yet another that could potentially provide them with considerable additional licensing revenue.” However there are still important service-related developments needed to ensure LBS’s future success. The wider availability of all-inclusive data tariffs will spur service usage, which will in turn reduce users’ concerns about how much data value-added services like LBS might consume. Perhaps the most important development will be the cross-network interoperability of services. Once services provided by one carrier are capable of seamlessly incorporating users from other networks, then the usage of LBS will be driven virally by the desire to respond to and interact with friends and family on other networks. ABI Research’s “Mobile Location Based Services” examines the market for high-accuracy LBS, focusing on the applications side of the industry. It examines service deployments, providing projected levels of uptake and revenues for five key LBS types. It includes summary profiles of the market-leading LBS-enabling companies, and forms part of three subscription Research Services: Location Aware Services, Mobile Devices, and Consumer Mobility. ABI Research is a leading market research firm focused on the impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets. Utilizing a unique blend of market intelligence, primary research, and expert assessment from its worldwide team of industry analysts, ABI Research assists hundreds of clients each year with their strategic growth initiatives. For information, visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

Mommy, I want an Android!

PND increasingly loosing their future to Smartphones

Just assume that all mobiles being sold in the US currently have GPS buildt-in... and that adverstment ain't going to pay the bills... or "Mommy, the screens too small!!! I want an Android!"

SAN FRANCISCO — The rising availability of connected portable navigation devices (PNDs) and continued growth of location-based services were big topics at the GPS-Wireless 2008 conference here.

To make a point about where the market has gone in 10 years, Marc Prioleau, deCarta's vice president of marketing, held up a bulky, mid-1990s-era PCMCIA card with integrated GPS. "At Trimble, we sold about 10 of these. Now, companies like Nokia have GPS integrated into 35 million devices," he said.

Services available on the mobile phone, such as navigation, will continue to be one of the market drivers for LBS, said Doug MacMillan, Nokia director of technology insight and promotion. "It's going to be clearly about services. Right now, we have about 40 percent market share," he said. "In North America, there will be 85 percent of phones [with navigation capability]. That number is about 50 percent in Europe and 10-15 percent in Asia."

The sale of advertising around traffic information has been a $300 million-a-year business for Westwood One, said Bill Martin, the company's senior vice president for interactive traffic services. "When we expand the model into the telematics space, the automobile is one our biggest single [markets]," he said. "What doesn't help the market is some of the interfaces that most drivers see. When selecting a specific route, seeing an icon on a 2.1-inch screen isn't the best option, as it is not actionable. The interface has to allow the driver to make a decision."

My conclusion... Google's future will be in your hand with a screen just big enough...

One Billion GPS Chip Sets by 2011 - SiRFs UP?

In a report published today ABI Research forecasts one billion GPS chipsets will be shipped annually in 2013. According to ABI Research, in 2007, SiRF held a commanding 70% share of the GPS IC market. "It achieved this by getting in early and aggressively targeting the market for consumer devices: while professional GPS has been around for some time, it is a much smaller and slower-growing market segment", explains the report.

Industry analyst Jamie Moss comments, "Three factors will intersect to shape the future of the GPS IC market. The average price of the chipset will fall to $3.50 or below by the end of 2008, permitting a true mass market adoption. This past fall ASP is driven by manufacturers' goal of producing receivers that can be included in lower-margin devices such as mobile phones: handset-based GPS will be critical to strong market penetration. The benefits will filter down to more traditional GPS uses such as in-car navigation. Meanwhile, we're seeing growing numbers of acquisitions: large chip manufacturers buying up specialist fabless GPS IC vendors in order to include their technologies in solutions that combine GPS with varied wireless RF product offerings, especially Bluetooth."

ABI's interest in GPS fabricators suggests manufacturers of personal navigation devices are facing continued stiff competition and will likely seek to stand out in the market by adding speech technology, multimedia capabilities, 3D map content and other features to their products. ABI Research predicts worldwide sales of these convergence devices will surpass more than 100 million units by 2011. Examples of such acquisitions in 2007 include Global Locate, acquired by Broadcom (June); GloNav by NXP (December); and u-Nav by Atheros (December). Additionally SiRF acquired Centrality to integrate System on Chip (SoC) solutions in its product range and u-blox went public on the Swiss stock exchange.

"In terms of absolute performance," says Moss, "there's not a lot to choose between rival manufacturers. To win important contracts the chipset must be as inexpensive as possible and as easy as possible for device manufacturers to integrate with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM radio and cellular solutions. As it was with Bluetooth, there is no great proactive consumer demand for GPS in mobile phones today, but once it's there, people will use it and expect it."

The dominance of Mobile phones that increasingly offer GPS as a standard feature has driven SiRF to play the commodity game as new entrants erode their legacy domination of the GPS chip supply. They took a significant hit in their stock due to this increase competition. But they have an answer that could shift the opportunity back their way in a few quarters.

In February Sirf announced a new GPS chip design, the SiRFprima platform. SiRFprima is a technical jump in that it combines an industry leading GPS/Galileo location engine, powerful application processor, rich audio and video recording and playback capabilities, high-resolution 3D graphics and a host of peripheral interfaces - all tuned to operate concurrently. Playing to the smartphone manufacturers, it supports both WinCE and Linux operating system environments which suggests SiRF intends to play with Google's Android handset.

The SiRFprima platform includes an ultra-high-speed, multifunction processor comprised of an advanced ARM11 core, a high-performance location engine that supports both GPS and Galileo satellite systems and an on-chip DSP. It also includes hardware-accelerated 3D graphics and multimedia encoding and decoding engines based on the gaming-grade PowerVR MBX 3D graphics accelerator core, vertex geometry processor and PowerVR MVED1 video encode/decode accelerator from Imagination Technologies. The SiRFprima multifunction processor delivers SiRF's renowned, industry leading, GPS-enabled location performance, featuring 64 channels with -161 dBm sensitivity. The hardware scalable location engine, with more than 1,000,000 correlators, is among the first capable of working with both GPS and Galileo signals simultaneously. Additionally, the SiRFprima processor has been specifically designed to support SiRF's proprietary GPS technologies, providing, for example, a dedicated accelerator for the SiRFInstantFixII(tm) technology.

100 Million GPS SmartPhones?

Wireless Developer Net

Wellingborough - February 1, 2008 – The big names in the digital camera world are all at PMA from today and there is no doubt that GPS will be a hot topic amongst attendees. The reason for this is a host of recent announcements from GPS companies such as Air Semiconductors, SiRF, Qualcomm, u-blox, Glonav and Geotate (NXP Software’s spinoff). These companies are finally paving the way for intelligent integration of GPS in digital cameras.

All the major GPS IC companies are looking at the digital camera market because of the volumes involved (over 100million units shipped in 2006 and growing) and the interest that digital camera manufacturers are showing in the technology. These manufacturers have been looking at GPS technology for years now and they have all been facing the issue of the usage mode of digital cameras (click and go). This conflicts directly with GPS, which can require tens of seconds (or sometimes minutes) in order to get a location fix (TTFF).

As outlined in IMS Research’s report “The Worldwide Market for GPS/GNSS-enabled Portable Devices”, solving this conflict is a key element for a successful uptake of the technology in the market. Matia Grossi, author of the report, said “camera manufacturers are unsure of traditional solutions because they are too power hungry, too expensive and take too long to get a location fix. The imminent arrival of GPS-enabled cameraphones, has placed increased emphasis on addressing this capability. Furthermore in the past years their margins have thinned significantly, with the commoditization of their products and the competition from the cellular market, making the issue even more complicated. At the moment there are limited GPS-enabled solutions, mostly in the high-end SLR market using external (and expensive) devices”.

“A new wave of GPS techniques are emerging that will solve the issue in different and innovative ways. As a result, IMS Research’s forecasts that the GPS camera market will show very strong growth over the next 5 years growing from a sub-million unit market in 2006, with a CAGR of over 200%. Currently, two of the most interesting ones are those brought to the market by Geotate and Air Semiconductor.

Garmin to build a GeoMobile Phone

Garmin enters the mobile phone market....

posted Yesterday, 11:38 PM by Eric M. Zeman
updated Yesterday, 11:49 PM

Updated: Edited link, added info.

Garmin, maker of GPS products, announced a brand new product called the nuvifone. The nuvifone is a cell phone that resembles the iPhone and is loaded with applications and services from Google. It has HSDPA for 3G connectivity and uses a large touch screen for user input. Some of the services on the nuvifone are Google Local Search, Gmail and Maps with access to local traffic reports and Google Panaramio. One feature, called Where Am I?, automatically locates the device and displays coordinates, as well as lists the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. It has an MP3 player, shoots video and stills with automatic geotagging. It also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and full GPS. No word on pricing or carrier support in the U.S. It will not be available until the third quarter.

I am going to ad links to this sort ast it devlopes..

From the handheld GPS side.. htttp://gpstracklog.typepad.com/gps_tracklog/

Geotagging via CAN - Camera Area Network

A good article on Geotagging via camera area networking ...

except they left out solutions from Red Hen Systems.

NEW YORK (AP) -- To plan an upcoming hike in the Alps, John Higham scoured scores of photos plotted along his route on a digital map for clues to the steepness of trails and the availability of accommodations or camp sites.

These images were just like all the other vacation photos shared by travelers and amateur photographers, except they'd been tagged with location information in an emerging practice known as ''geotagging.''

Armed with such data, Higham didn't have to search endless combinations of keywords and guess how photographers would describe images in captions. By zooming in on the map, he could easily find geotagged photos along the Via Alpina and gain a fresh perspective.

ABI Predicts 550 Million Handsets with GPS Features in2012

Key Drivers and Latest Trends Pushing GPS Penetration in CDMA, GSM and WCDMA HandsetsContact

Nicole Fabris
Contact PR
www.abiresearch.com

Shipments of GPS-enabled mobile phones will generate over $50 billion in revenues in 2008, rising to $100 billion in 2012. The market for these handsets is expected to grow from around 240 million units in 2008 to over 550 million handset shipments in 2012. At present, most current GPS-enabled handsets are CDMA devices, but increasing numbers of GPS-enabled handsets for 3G/WCDMA networks will start to appear in the market from 2008 onwards.

According to ABI Research industry analyst Shailendra Pandey, “The ongoing consolidation in the mobile industry – including Nokia’s acquisition of NAVTEQ, Broadcom’s acquisition of Global Locate, CSR’s acquisition of NordNav Technologies and Cambridge Positioning Systems, and the tussle between TomTom and Garmin to acquire Tele Atlas – gives a clear indication of the plans and commitment of industry players to address the GPS-enabled handset market.”

ABI Research believes that the mobile industry has reached the stage where we can expect to see rapid growth in the GPS-enabled handset market. From cost and technology perspectives, chipset manufacturers now have solutions in place that will allow the integration of GPS in handsets at low cost and provide significant improvements in terms of accuracy, time-to-first-fix, and reception in indoor environments. On the services side, mobile operators and navigation application developers are coming up with attractive LBS offerings. Also, handset vendors are showing greater interest not only in providing GPS-enabled handsets, but also in introducing their own GPS-centric applications and services.

ABI Research expects the market for GPS-enabled handsets to grow strongly in the next five years. In addition to major handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, RIM and Samsung, smaller Asian ODMs including HTC, Quanta and Inventec are also introducing GPS-enabled devices. The firm’s new study "GPS-Enabled Mobile Devices" examines the market landscape and future potential for GPS-enabled mobile phones. It discusses the critical business and marketing issues, as well as the market opportunities and challenges facing handset vendors, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors, and other industry players in addressing the GPS-enabled handset market.

Auto-tagging - Faces with Places

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9816371-39.html

Get ready for a new era in which your camera knows not just when you took a picture but who's in it, too.

Many cameras today can detect the faces of those being photographed, which is handy for guiding the camera to set its exposure, focus, and color balance properly. But the more difficult challenge of face recognition is more useful after the photo has been taken.

That's because of a concept called autotagging, one of a number of technologies that make digital photography qualitatively different from the film photography of the past.

Tags of descriptive data can be attached to digital photos, and they help people find and organize pictures. The only problem is that tagging your photos, today a laborious manual task, is like eating your vegetables. It's good for you but a lot of people don't like it.

With autotagging, the camera attaches tags as the pictures are taken. Today, cameras embed timestamps in photos, which makes it possible to sift through pictures by date. But be honest here--how reliably can you remember exactly when you took that picture of your darling daughter a year or two ago that you'd like to e-mail to her grandparents? Being able to screen for photos only of a particular person could dramatically speed up the search process.

One camera maker willing to mention its interest in autotagging is Panasonic. "A lot of thought is going into how to tag photos so you can retrieve them at a moment's notice," said Alex Fried, national marketing manager for imaging at Panasonic's Consumer Electronics Co. But he wouldn't go into specifics: "There are things we have in the works that will help benefit consumers going forward."

And faces aren't the only aspect of autotagging that's likely to show up in cameras. Location, too, is another useful attribute that can be attached to photos through a process called geotagging. Geotagging can be used both to look for photos whose location you know and to figure out what exactly is in a photo you already have at hand.

Today, geotagging is generally a laborious manual task that requires geographic data to be merged with photos after the fact using a computer. But more power-efficient approaches will lead to in-camera GPS systems that will enable automatic geotagging, predicted Kanwar Chadha, founder of GPS chip designer SiRF Technology.

"A location stamp is much more important than a time stamp in most cases. A year down the road, you have no idea where those pictures were taken and no way to search for location," Chadha said.

Geotagging Driving GPS in Cameras and Mobiles

Geotagging Driving GPS in Cameras, Laptops, Says IMS Research
November 13, 2007

Traditionally, geo-tagging has been a complicated procedure, restricting the market to hardcore enthusiasts and professional users. However, new GPS and LBS advances are enabling this market while also driving consumer growth for GPS into cameras and laptops.

As analyzed in IMS Research’s report “The Worldwide Market for GPS/GNSS-enabled Portable Devices – 2007 edition” GPS is going to be integrated in a number of portable devices, such as laptops, PMPs, cellular and digital cameras. The overall market is set to increase 5-fold by 2011, with laptops and digital cameras representing over 20% of the market.

Matia Grossi, author of the report, says “Photo sites and online communities, e.g. Flickr and MySpace, need to maintain financial growth through traffic-based business; camera manufacturers need to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market; end users need new and innovative management functionalities for their offline pictures libraries. GPS is potentially the answer”.

“Looking at the camera market, only a small number of companies have introduced real-time GPS capabilities into their high-end SLRs”. It is difficult to integrate current GPS solutions cheaply and effectively. Camera manufacturers have razor thin profit margins, so it needs to be cheap and it needs to work. A traditional hardware solution is not well suited for the digital camera space for a number of reasons, including cost, battery drain and performance. Furthermore, people expect to capture the moment in an instant and do not want to wait for 30 seconds or more to get a fix. A GPS system, targeting the camera space, needs to address all these fundamental industry requirements”.

A new software approach is being developed by NXP Software targeting the laptop and digital camera market. SnapSpot is a low cost/low power alternative that easily integrates into these devices, requiring little additional hardware (i.e. antenna, LNA and RF front-end). When taking a photo, SnapSpot captures 100ms of digitized GPS signal and stores it in memory. On downloading the photos to a PC, the location is calculated using remote servers.

Asus has already introduced SnapSpot in its US3 laptops. Currently, other laptop and camera manufacturers have caught the navigation bug, which requires a more traditional GPS approach. This has driven the recent announcements from Qualcomm and other GPS suppliers in relation to these markets. While hardware GPS is fine for laptops, it will slow initial uptake in the camera market. IMS Research believes that software-based technologies will force manufacturers to change their minds and drive uptake of GPS and geo-tagging.

SiRF Chips Dominate

SiRF Dominates Global GPS Handset Shipments and Evolving Location Based Services

GPS World

Global shipments of mobile handsets equipped with GPS capability will more than quadruple from 2006 to 2011 because of the U.S. government’s mandate for emergency 911 (E911) capability, as well as wireless operators’ initiatives to offer LBS, iSuppli Corp. said Thursday. GPS-equipped mobile handset shipments will increase to 444 million units by 2011, rising from 109.6 million units in 2006, according to the market research firm. By 2011, 29.6 percent of all mobile phones shipped will have GPS capability, up from 11.1 percent in 2006.

"Besides cameras, multimedia capabilities and connectivity solutions, mobile-handset OEMs increasingly are investigating the integration of GPS functionality in mobile devices as a value-added product differentiator," said Tina Teng, iSuppli wireless communications analyst. "Wireless carriers are looking at introducing various new GPS-based, revenue-generating services to increase average revenue per user (ARPU)."

Accuracy and Response Key to LBS, Say TruePosition, IDC

"Location-based services have been slow to take off in the United States, but these research findings clearly show that the U.S. market is getting good traction," said Robert Morrison, TruePosition's senior vice president of market and business development. "Due to the rise in navigation systems in cars and websites that provide directions and points of interest, both consumers and enterprises in the United States are now grasping the concept of location-based services, and they have very specific ideas about how they should work."

The study asked consumers and enterprises in the United States exactly what they want and expect from the following LBS: child monitoring, medical and senior-citizen monitoring, pet tracking, navigation, traffic, stolen vehicle recovery, social networking, local search, fleet tracking, and workforce management.

When selecting the features that were most important to mobile navigation services, people ranked the ability to use the service in dense metropolitan areas first, according to IDC. The ability to use the service nationwide was second, and re-routing was the third feature.

As for local search, more than half of consumers are receptive to advertisement-sponsored local search services, which could prove to be a significant new source of revenue for mobile operators. Local search on cell phones looks to be the low-hanging LBS fruit for the wireless operator community, but only if they can agree on a free-advertising-based business model. Only 25 percent of those surveyed would consider paying for the service, IDC said.

The survey also found that security seems to be a key factor in determining whether location-enabled mobile social networking will take off. Consumers are unlikely to subscribe to these types of services unless service accessibility can be limited to authorized users and a process is in place to keep out strangers.

Overall, consumers revealed that they were extremely receptive to location-based services, providing they perform at the optimum levels—essentially, working wherever and whenever their mobile phone worked, IDC found. The majority of the respondents wanted the services to work in several different types of environments (outdoors, indoors and in vehicles), desired sub-50-meter accuracy, and required a sub-15-second response time.

But What Do Businesses Want from LBS?

From an enterprise perspective, LBS user preferences between the three geographies were remarkably similar. Workforce management and fleet tracking services were highlighted as the most prevalent uses of LBS by businesses. Some 74 percent of respondents to the survey viewed productivity improvements as a key benefit, while 69 percent saw cost savings as another key benefits. Also, businesses ranked the safety and security of their workers as the most important feature, with ease of implementation coming in at a close second.

SiRF Technology Holdings Inc. unveiled its SiRFecosystem strategy and introduced SiRFstudio, a standards-based, end-to-end LBS platform.

SiRFstudio is designed to simplify and speed the development and deployment of location-aware applications across a broad range of mobile devices, SiRF says. It is part of what SiRF has dubbed its SiRFecosystem, a suite of tools and resources to speed development, testing, deployment and marketing of LBS applications that drive higher average revenue per user. More than one hundred companies worldwide are already participating in the SiRFecosystem LBS developer community, according to SiRF.

SiRFstudio intends to make location an intrinsic and useful part of every mobile device, combining with and enhancing applications people use the most from calling, messaging and browsing to address books, calendars and e-mail, the company says. It is a superset of the JSR-179 location (application programming interface) API, supporting multiple integrated development environments such as Java Wireless Toolkit 2.3, and offers software developers standard APIs for accessing location capabilities across multiple devices, operating systems and location technologies.

Today the revenues wireless service providers receive for voice services far exceed those they receive for data services, SiRF observes. In contrast, in the U.S. and many other countries, wire-line data revenues already exceed voice revenues, and wireless service providers are understandably eager to close this gap. SiRF believes wireless data revenues will follow a similar trend, and that location will be a key contributor in closing this revenue gap by providing a context for mobile content, the company says.

The Lowdown on SiRFstudio

SiRFstudio comprises both client and server components. The SiRFstudio thin client resides on the mobile device and provides developer-facing APIs for the rapid development and integration of location-enabled applications.

OEMs and ODMs can employ these APIs to location-enable their native applications, while third-party developers can employ them to create downloadable and browsable LBS applications as well as widgets, according to SiRF. These open, common APIs will extend across all major device operating platforms, including Java, Windows, Linux and Symbian, and are compliant with all major standards, including JSR-179, Open LS, OMA MLP and SUPL and support the Web2.0 Widget environment, including Mobile Ajax and the JavaScript runtime.

SiRFstudio Server has a multi-protocol gateway that receives requests for location data from the SiRFstudio client over any available wireless link and delivers the available location data back to it. SiRFstudio Server interfaces with most of the major geospatial data platforms worldwide, including Autodesk, ESRI, Webraska, Navitime, Microsoft, DeCarta, Telmap, Maporama, Tele Atlas and Navteq, among others, the company says.

SiRFstudio Server's location intelligence capabilities support peer-to-peer location to communicate user location with others, geo-annotation to create location-based user content, geo-publishing for location-based RSS and real-time feeds and a geo-agent for event-driven alerts based on time, location, speed, heading or motion. The SiRFstudio Server vending machine interface provides a turnkey solution for both on-deck and off-deck content distribution, the company says.

Google Mobile and Maps

Berg Insight writes that the number of mobile subscribers accessing maps and downloading routs using their mobile handsets in Europe and the U.S.A. is around 4 million. Over the next ten years the number of map subscribers is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 61% to reach 43 million users in 2012.

Big names in the mobile industry are gearing up for mobile phone navigation. Nokia launched its GPS-enabled N95 for the European market this year. The U.S. has evolved further with GPS being a standard in all CDMA-handsets. Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless have attracted millions of subscribers to navigation services. Google and Yahoo! are extending their existing search and map propositions with Mobile Web 2.0 applications.

Traditionally, Google mobile and non-mobile web surfing declines in the summer months as people go on vacation. (At least in North America). This year traffic on mobile devices utilizing Google has increased 35%. Mobile devices looking at Google Maps has increased as much as 50%. This appears to point to a trend, in which people use their mobile devices for information while taking time off from work. This shows how attached people are to such devices, when they are willing to take them along on vacation.

“I think this is sort of a sign that people are becoming savvier with their mobile devices, and that there are better devices” available for the Web, while away from computers, Mayer told reporters after a presentation to marketers at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. “The technology curve is catching up,” she told reporters after the presentation. “The phones are just better.”

The number of Google searches done on mobile devices are tiny compared to those done on PCs, but the summer increase in North America shows that people are realizing the usefulness of mobile search engines. Maps and other information can enhance the vacation experience. Getting lost or visiting uninteresting places may become a thing of the past.

Berg Insight predicts that ad-funded services will account for an increasing share of the mobile navigation market. Local search applications can open the door to new ways for businesses to target consumers. MobileCrunch reported last month that more Americans are taking their mobile devices along on vacation to access map technology.

TELEPHIA: MOBILE VIDEO

TRIPLE-DIGIT GROWTH IN REVENUES AND SUBSCRIBERS

SAN FRANCISCO --June 26, 2007--After another quarter of impressive subscriber growth, mobile video is rapidly becoming a significant new media distribution platform. According to Telephia, the world's largest provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets, mobile video revenues in the U.S. totaled $146 million in Q1 2007, growing 198 percent year-over-year (see Table 1). There were 8.4 million mobile video subscribers last quarter with penetration doubling to nearly four percent since Q1 2006.

"Within a very short time, the number of mobile video subscribers has grown to over 8 million, comparable with the average audience size for an episode of The Sopranos this season," said Kanishka Agarwal , vice president of mobile media, Telephia.

"As the world's leading provider of video on the handset, MTV Networks recognizes the vast opportunities at hand for the mobile industry, from the sheer number of handsets out there, to the limitless potential for innovation the technology provides," said Greg Clayman, senior vice president, MTVN Mobile Media. "By cultivating an even deeper understanding of consumer behaviors and usage patterns, the industry will continue to build momentum and meet the growing demand for content on the handset."

Mobile Video Consumers More Receptive to Mobile Advertising

Telephia data shows that mobile video audiences are primed for seeing ads on their phones. Video consumers had the highest recall of viewing ads on their phones as compared to all data service consumers, with 55 percent saying they recalled viewing a mobile ad in the last 30 days (see Table 2). This is nearly three times the recall rate for mobile data consumers in general. Even more promising, forty-one percent of mobile video consumers recently responded in some way to an ad, an encouraging sign for advertisers.

"Consumers are used to seeing commercials on their TV at home, which has created a learned behavior that is transferring to mobile TV and making advertising more acceptable," continued Agarwal. "Nearly half of mobile video users are willing to view ads on their phones in exchange for something, translating into a compelling opportunity for ad-supported mobile content where marketers can target customers with relevant advertising."

The Telephia Mobile Video Report for Q1 2007 is now available, and combines detailed research into the behavior and attitudes of nearly 1,200 current mobile video users in the US with analysis of video market size and spending patterns collected from Telephia's panel of 35,000 mobile subscribers. For more information about this product, please contact mailto:mobilemedia@telephia.com.

About Telephia

Telephia is the world's largest provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets. Telephia is your connection to the digital consumer. Telephia uses its unique measurement tools and large-scale consumer panels to completely understand the digital consumer's behavior, attitudes and experience.

To learn how Telephia data can help you understand the digital consumer and track your competitive performance, please contact us at (415) 395-0500 or http://www.telephia.com/.